WE THINK THAT WE ARE SO KNOWLEDGEABLE about our own needs and ourselves! But, more often than not, we are just opinionated and headstrong people! We refuse instructions from anyone who could tell us about the deeper things of the spirit, because “We know”, or… “Don’t want to know!” (How DARE you address this Mrs. Lindow)!!!

Hmmmm! I think I will continue!! **smile**

We stumble along without anyone's help, and all the while we are overlooking that gnawing,“unsettled sense” inside of us, though if we paid attention to this we would see our true inner condition. It is in this way that we acclimate our souls to straggle along in a dark spiritual wilderness, and how we do ourselves so much harm.

MANY, MANY OTHER CHRISTIAN SOULS ARE JUST LIKE THIS. They don't know how to do anything other than let their human senses guide them, and then one day, God intervenes. He arranges things so that one day when you are all alone, there will heave from within your heart a sudden surprising awareness of absolute emptiness. He may also cause you to have a feeling of complete emptiness, but an overwhelming sense of isolation from others, and a lot of loss.

“All of a person's ways seem right in his own opinion, But the LORD evaluates the motives.” Proverbs 21:2

You see, there is nothing but a bottomless crater to look down into the deadness of our own souls if we are not fully committed to God. If you ever come to this place you will know how quickly your soul wants to run away and rush to find something, anything at all, to "fill" itself up again with noise and activity. Art! Food! Beautiful Clothing! The doing of generous deeds! Perfectionistic exercising and self-improvement to show your “Self” discipline! After all... PEOPLE are watching!

The reality of this is… So Is God.

VERY FEW SEE THIS BLEAK MOMENT FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS. It's a chance to see their need for something that is beyond themselves.

But my friend, this can be a moment where the soul can cross over from its own empty silence into an expected quiet that is alive with his presence. It silences the anguish, the anxious restlessness into a calm and still place of peace. It's as if the soul finds that in this dark place, there is secret well of sweet water,and it springs up and overflows with light and life.

Learning to pass into this place of the spirit and allowing God to keep your soul in refreshing silent tranquility is a true act of the maturing believer.

ALL OF YOUR FLESHY SOUL WILL WANT TO RADICALLY FIGHT THIS, and it will do so by trying to analyze what's happening! All of this kind of behavior will just weigh you down and it'll pull you back from walking in the spirit, to walking simply in your own understanding.

The choice we all must make is encapsulated in this statement made by John the Baptist.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

-John 3:30

Another translation of this verse says it even more plainly.

“He must become more important while I become less important."

WHEW!

HEAVEN CAN BE ENTERED ONLY THROUGH THE NARROW GATE!

The pathway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide enough for all the multitudes that choose its easy way. But the Gateway to Life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.

–Matthew 7:13-14

The word “way” translated from the Greek word hodós literally means a natural road or traveled way.It refers to a way of life or a way of thinking. The word is used six times in the book of Acts as a substitute for Christianity itself.We can quickly understand that the Christian faith is more than a one-time decision to accept Christ. It is a faith, which alters the very course of a life.

The word “narrow” comes from the Greek verb thlíbo, which means to press or crush as a worker in a vineyard might crush grapes or a crowd of people might press against one another.

This word also means to experience trouble, difficulty, or affliction. Combined with the Greek word hodós, it insinuates a squeezed, straitened, or narrowing pathway.

The cramped condition of the path seems to imply two valuable truths about the nature of the Christian life. It is a way marked out by the will of God, and it is a way marked by difficulty and struggle.

Remember,when your soul discovers how to let the Holy Spirit bring it into this place of inner peace of learning to rest in this stillness, it’s only because God is carrying you in his arms and that you sense no toil or drive on your part. Friends, this accomplishes much more than all of your own actions or works of performance, since God Himself, is at work inside of you.

“I am confident that the Creator, who has begun such a great work in you, will not stop in mid-design but will keep perfecting you until the day Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, returns to redeem the world.” -Philippians 1:6 (The Voice)

IF WE FACE “THE NARROWING”, the challenge of allowing our soul,our flesh to be fully handed over to God’s pathway, He will teach our soul how to overcome three of the most toxic of sins.

These sins are -

Anger, Envy, and, An unwillingness to obey the Lord.

These run wild through our stony and hardened hearts and they eventually can crumble and ruin us.

YOU SEE, OUR SOULS DESIRE TO FIND COMPLETE HAPPINESS, bliss, consolation and security in this world, and this can never really happen! So, God has to show us our great darkness when our soul tries to find spiritual strength there, because there is no sweet and vibrant life when our soul is attached to the things of this world! It’s a wide and gregarious path in the world, and the crowds on the pathway adore gratification and pleasure of every sort.

Our souls have a natural demand for wanting our own pleasure and achievement, and frustration causes these sins to grow, and they bring the very ugly fruit that is produced from them right into the light! OUCH!

The Lord allows his tool of difficult circumstances to crush and to crack our hard souls. He plants His word of light deep into our darkness. And He pours the living water of His spirit on our dryness and then we soften, as he uproots our old sluggish ways and our complaining about obeying God. Meaning, having to pass up our soothing comforts and pleasures.

I URGE YOU TO QUIET THE COMPLAINING OF YOUR SOUL, with its rebellions. We will naturally want to turn back to its pleasure and demands! But as the world goes further and further into broad deviations of every kind, you as a believer will face a fork in the road.

One of the most cunning temptations of the times that we live in right now for believers is the mindset that says, “ I’m not going to get into any trouble! I can handle things as a Christian just fine! I wont actually “touch the fire” I’ll just play around it!”

What is that fire? It’s justifying and adapting God’s often narrow and absolute instructions about relationships, marriage, sex, self indulgence, arrogance,“harmless" Occult involvement and lording over those whom you feel are less astute or affluent as you.

GOD WILL AND HE MUST BRING THIS DRYNESS OUT OF OUR SOULS and kill these deadly roots! Quiet the pathetic demands of your soul for soothing comforts and a right to be angry and judgmental! When your path seems empty and silent and desert dry, put your soul’s concentration on God alone. You can hardly imagine the harvest of a lasting joy that comes to you when you learn to be free of your soul’s whining. It's there that God can speak quiet words! They will be so sweet and tender, and he will speak of his great love to us.

KNOW THIS. DRYNESS WILL TRY TO COME AGAIN AND AGAIN. It wants to lead you to self-justification and an easy escape from the hammer and chisel of God shaping your being, turning it into a reservoir for His purposes. It will try to come back with greater strength each time you resist. So stand your ground and stand firm in the quietness of your brokenness. Focus upon His presence guiding you down the narrowing path. He will come to you and His fresh guidance will be more amazing than anything your natural mind can imagine.

A Prophetic Word Fromthe Spirit of God

For Those Facing “The Narrowing”

“Darker and broader and louder come the shouts of world to draw you into its intricate webs.

These webs of deceit are spun with silken tongues and with the softness of the promise of an easier life.

There is a reckoning coming to those that sell lies and imprison those who buy their wares.

But for those who are determined to not walk on a fence, trying to balance between their own thinking and me, there will be a “Divine Might” that will empower them to continue down the narrowing way.

Where does this narrowing journey lead?

What is the payoff at the end?

As you become more determined and lay aside the things that have hindered you over and overagain from fully entering into the deeper places with me, a lightness and freedom will propel you toward a place of Living Light.

That Light is Me, and you will soon know Me in a different way than you have in past years and seasons.

My one warning to many is that they cannot argue that the path is “too narrow”.

What mankind might call “rigid” I call “Straight and Direct”.

If you choose to alter the plans that I have set down for your protection and safety, you will grieve my Spirit and allow a searing of your conscience to override the truths that you know deep in your heart.

“The path of those who do right is straight and smooth. I, who am upright, make the way of the righteous level.” -Isaiah 26:7

“The Narrowing” has begun to increase, and the love for it has decreased among those who choose to remain passive to conviction and pure living.

Allow my Holy Spirit to move freely again. I know what I must do, to break the constraints of man. Let me move! Are you afraid that I might be ridiculed? Or, are you more concerned for your image and patterns before men?

“Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies,

But test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good.”

-I Thessalonians 5:19-21

Choose the“Narrowing Way”. For I, Am there.

Choose the pathway of rightness with me, even when others scoff at your “narrow mindedness.”

When the days become darker and the world tilts and twists in further unrestrained darkness,You will be the carrier of My Light, which can lead the lukewarm and lost down the narrow, but safe, and integral way, to Me.